Friday, February 11, 2005

Advice, Please?

Updated with a better photo:

I've mentioned before the horrible brick-print vinyl that covers the floor in the kitchen, office, laundry room and back part of the hall. The plan at the moment is to take out the vinyl and plywood subfloor in the kitchen and get back to the original painted pine floor. OK.

But that leaves the hall and the office with the monstrous vinyl. These areas have been porches, add-ons, etc. and don't have the luxury of nice floors underneath. They're ugly through and through.

So I need some help figuring out what would look good there.

The vinyl bumps up against the original dark pine floors of the middle section of the hall (covered by a rug at the moment) and will also be next to the painted pine kitchen floor. This floor is the first thing you see when you walk in the back door, and you'll be able to see where it meets the pine floors.

So it needs to look good. I've thought about linoleum or marmoleum, new hardwood floors (but wouldn't that clash with the pine?), stone-look ceramic tiles, cork, pretty much everything imaginable. I don't want it to look like a McMansion (so the ceramic tiles are out, in my opinion), and I also don't want it to look like an elementary school cafeteria (which Darwin says the marmoleum would do).

13 Comments:

Personally, I don't like ceramic tile floors. We put them in our master bath and keeping the grout clean drives me crazy.I know Armstrong makes really cool vinyl flooring. And my parents just had laminate wood floors installed - and they have a lifetime guarantee - don't remember the brand off the top of my head.

I think certain tile styles could work - check out this site: http://www.originalstyle.com/tile_victorian.htm

Expensive though, I'm sure.

You could get more pine and try to match - I've seen places that sell reclaimed pine floors. With some type of transition between the two, and a good stain match, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference.

Kristin,I'll have to check with Charlie about the brand but there are some awesome floating floors out there. He brought home some samples (I'm thinking about using it for the kitchen to replace the ugly blue vinyl tiles). The one I really like is called "Venice" or something like that....looks like ceramic tile, but won't be near as cold, and you don't have to worry about keeping the grout lines clean. I think Lowe's has is for about $75/bundle....a bundle does 20-some sq ft.

I prefer sanding and finishing the floors myself but it is easy for me to do since we don't live in the house yet and we bought a used drum sander several years ago for $650. Should you choose this option I can give you oodles of advice and tips having done seven floors and two staircases in the last 5 years. Here is my real advice though; before you do anything that costs real money, find out what you really have under the vinyl. There may be a layer of masonite or plywood over the original floor. Then buy this book (or buy this book first) which you may find on half.com or at your local library. It is called "Decorative Style" by Kevin McCloud, ISBN # 0-671-69142-2. It will give you soooo many ideas and even explain that you can paint a pattern on the existing tiles. In the meantime you can always slap a burlap or sisle floorcloth down until you are ready to do what is right for you. Whatever you do, buy the book anyway! Trust me on this one.

Gary, we know there is plywood under the vinyl. In the kitchen, we know the original painted pine is underneath the plywood ... we saw it when we were installing the dishwasher. BUT we don't know what condition it's in. It will certainly have a lot of nail holes in it. We plan to sand and paint it ourselves. A checkerboard/diamond pattern.

As for the hall, it used to be outside. The front porch has a nice pine floor, so it's not impossible that this would, too. But it's a big question mark.

I like the idea of reclaimed pine. I found reclaimed Georgia heart pine floors here for $7.50/sq. ft.

I was just reading a book called Victorian house style: an architectural and interior design source book by Linda Osband that talked about how traditional tile floors were. Now most of the houses in the book were (a) British (b) fancy, but mosaic tile floors were apparently the flooring of choice for entryways and hallways for the Victorians. So, if you could afford it and like tile, that might actually be one of the most traditional things you could do.

If you are going to repaint the pine floors in the kitchen, you could conceivably put any sort of wood floor in the adjoing rooms and paint them to match. Or keep them stained. Engineered hardwood is cheaper and has up to 50-year finish warranties. It ain't cheap, though. To me, having a different floor in different rooms doesn't phase me. I installed wood-style laminate in our entry, hallway and two of our bedrooms (all the same finish). There's new carpet in the living room. – T-bone

I had the same problem in our last kitchen...the connecting dining room had a plywood subfloor. We were on a strict, strict budget. I pulled up the vinyl and filled the gaps between plywood panels with wood putty. Then I sanded everything smooth. I just painted it in the same checkerboard pattern as the kitchen floor. It was slightly disconnected, as the plywood didn't have the little gaps between the pine floor boards. It was still an effective look!Also, for another attractive but cheap fix, you could do what my cousin did to *her* fake brick vinyl kitchen floor. She liked the texture and look of painted brick, so she simply primed with oil-based Kilz and painted it in a soft cream floor paint. You would never believe it wasn't a real painted brick floor. The little grooves were problematic for cleaning, but the look was designer magazine sunroom!

This week's Home Depot flyer advertises Earth Gauged Slate Tile (authentic natural stone) for 1.97 a square foot. Great price! I notice that Martha Stewart uses slate in her mudroom and connecting rooms off the kitchen.Kelly

$7 per sq. ft is a lot to pay if you're going to paint it. Are you painting a harlequin pattern? Sounds ideal to use linoeleum to make the pattern. Maybe you could re-use the pine flooring from the kitchen in the hallway. It's hard to know until you know the condition of the floor. We have a fir floor in our kitchen under 3 layers of lino and vinyl. I'd like to restore it, but I'm unsure of it's condition.

Meredith, hmmm, painted brick vinyl. I love the look of painted brick also, so I could see how it would look cute. But ours is laid in 6-foot-wide strips that are peeling up on the edges and have been tacked down all along the length of the seams. Ick. I think we'll have to rip out the old stuff after all. I do like the budget-conscious idea of painting the plywood/particle board (not sure what it is at the moment) in the hall. It could be a good temporary (few years) fix.

Kelly, slate is a nice material. It could look good there.

Derek, if we laid reclaimed pine in the hall, we wouldn't paint it. We'd only be painting the kitchen. I'm thinking brown and cream checks on an angle so they're more like diamonds. We're not 100 percent sure of the condition of our floor either. But we want to give it a shot.

What about multi colored slate? You can find it on sale sometimes. It's a classic. Very sturdy for entries and would match with your wood floors. Look at the picture here that says TILE http://www.aracnet.com/~tile/Pages/Stone.html